With 1.6 million young people experiencing homelessness across our nation, an estimated 40% identity as being apart of the LGBTQ+ community*. Often this is due to our societal incapacity to show tolerance, acceptance, and most importantly—love. Ranging in a broad spectrum that includes sexual orientation and gender identity, we must remember that what distinguishes the separate parts of this community, also brings them together—fighting for the same rights as any other American.

With the recent Supreme Court case Masterpiece v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, we can already begin to see the roadmap whereby hard-fought rights of the LGBTQ+ community will be torn away. These moves to suppress an entire population only serves to drag our nation back to a time where religious tolerance was used as a scapegoat for blanket discrimination.

When elected to Congress, I will fight for the rights and protection of every individual. We can no longer afford to take two steps forward and three steps back.

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* "Homeless rates for LGBT teens are alarming, but parents can make a difference", Jaimie Seaton, Washington Post, March 29, 2017.